The dramatic increase in the use and availability of communication services in recent years has led to a significant increase in the need for mobile broadband services. A primary goal of mobile broadband is to offer seamless wireless communications services essentially everywhere. Macro cell deployments often provide acceptable service coverage, and some areas such as important or highly-populated buildings are served by dedicated solutions. However, in other areas, macro coverage is insufficient, and it is not economically viable to consider dedicated deployments. Examples include underground garages, tunnels, and apartment buildings.
One possible solution in such cases is to deploy repeaters. A repeater receives radio signals and forwards the received signal towards its intended destination, possibly after some amplification. In some networks, a repeater (amplifies and) forwards both signals and noise received by the repeater. That is, all signals received by the repeater are repeated—no knowledge about the communication protocols is needed. Additionally, in some cases the repeater may be capable of operating so that a donor cell and/or base station serving the repeater are unaware that the device they are directly communicating with is a repeater.
Nonetheless, because repeaters may transmit and receive wireless signals in areas in which base stations or other radio access elements are also communicating with mobile terminals, repeaters may need to be carefully configured to permit them to successfully interoperate with these other devices. However, an advanced communication system may include numerous repeaters positioned in a widely distributed geographic area. Furthermore, installation and operation of repeaters may be carried out by different parties than those operating the other elements of the radio access network, making it difficult to know when and where a repeater will be activated and need configuration. Additionally, the optimal configuration of a repeater may depend heavily on the other devices operating in its vicinity or other aspects of its current operational environment. As a result, the development of techniques for the automated configuration of repeaters in advanced communication networks is highly desirable.